When did sport become a business? A long time ago.
I am old enough to remember when the eastern European countries dominated many events at the Olympics, and here in the UK we muttered under our breath about how unfair it was. They were state sponsored. They did not have to work for a living. To all intents and purposes they were professionals, paid for by the state, competing against our gallant Brtish amateurs.
In the USA they had their own system for allowing elite athletes to train fulltime. They had a college scholarship scheme which allowed their best athletes to become almost full-timers, spending a minimum time maintaining a minimum grade average to stay in college.
Then came the UK Lottery. And suddenly we were back in the game. Milions of pounds raised by the Lottery for good causes were diverted to the promotion of sport. And UK performance in the Olympics improved immeasurably, first in the London 2012 games, and now surpassing the London medal haul in Rio.
And, proud as I am of Team GB’s achievements, there is a little voice in the back of my head saying: we bought those medals. Not outright. Not for cash. Not passing stuffed brown envelopes into the hands of Sepp Blatter-like officials at the IOC. But still, there is a niggling guilt that we out-did many countries by the amount of training time and sports science we could throw at our best athletes.
None of which takes anything away from the individual athletes who sweated, strained and suffered to achieve their very best. I well remember a friend of mine who wanted to compete at world level in a non-Olympic sport, back in the 1970’s. He had to give up his job for six months and go on the dole so he could devote the amount of time needed to be the best he could be. With or without finacial backing, achieving world-class sporting prowess is a testament to the determination and dedication of every individual athlete who stands on the world stage, medallist or not.
But the statistics on the overall haul, it cannot be denied, are influenced by wealth. And that cannot be in the Olympic spirit, surely?